Legal Studies Year 11 Semester 1

Non-written Task

Good morning Mr Travers and fellow class mates,

For my presentation today I will be analysing police powers and the balance between
the rights of individuals to freedom from excessive control, and society’s need for
order.

It is well understood that law and order is essential in a civilized society, but how
much policing does society need before adequate levels of stability and order are
achieved? It is my hypothesis that police powers should be kept to the minimum
necessary to maintain an acceptable standard of law and order.

The purpose of a police force is to protect the community from crime by enforcing
society’s laws. If we accept that more police with more powers leads to less crime,
why not just keep increasing the number and powers of police until there is no crime
at all? There are two reasons not to follow this path. Firstly, it is a fallacy to believe
that there is a direct relationship between police powers and crime rates, and secondly
there is a cost to increasing police powers.

Every election the politicians tell us that crime rates are up, and more effective law
and order is required. They tell us that we need to feel safer and that, if elected, they
will provide greater safety by increasing police numbers and police powers. In doing
so, they encourage us to believe that without such law enforcement; we are in real
danger of becoming victims of crime.

In reality, however, the idea of having a police officer on every corner is impractical
and excessive. What people fail to recognise is that the number of police officers is
not directly related to the amount of crime. That is to say, if we were to double the
number of police officers in Australia, the crime rate would not be halved. We must
accept that no matter how many police we have patrolling our streets, laws will
continue to be broken; it is simply not possible to have complete control of everyone
all the time. (Unless we aspire to a “1984” scenario with full mind control!) A recent
Australian Institute of Criminology report shows that there was actually a downward
trend in crime between 2005 and 2007, but that the public perception was that crime
had increased.

A good police service is an expensive but essential cost to the community. When
police powers are allowed to exceed the level required to maintain a reasonable
standard of law and order however, there is a cost to society over and above the actual
dollars spent on the police themselves. This is the cost we suffer to our personal
freedom to live our lives as we choose, and especially affects members of minorities
and others less able to effectively represent their own interests in the criminal justice
system. It is therefore essential that police powers and procedures are effectively
monitored and regulated to ensure the rights of vulnerable individuals. This must be
done by other sections of government so that the community can have confidence in
the process.
In my opinion, there are more effective ways to achieve law and order within society
than by imposing more control over people with greater police powers. Policing is
reactive; meaning that most police action takes place as a result of crimes already
committed, rather than before the crime is performed, as a method of prevention. I
think that to reduce crime, we need to remove the opportunity and benefits for
perpetrators. Most people who commit crimes are unemployed, lacking sufficient
education and often suffering financial difficulties. They commit crime because they
can’t see any other way out of their situation, and without properly considering the
consequences. If we were to offer offenders better education regarding the effects of
their actions on themselves and others, they would be less likely to reoffend. Further
education would also provide them with better job opportunities, and give them
alternatives to antisocial and illegal activities. Prevention is better than cure, and
effective social policies to reduce crime would actually reduce the need for increased
law enforcement.

The correct balance lies in giving the police just sufficient powers and resources to do
their job effectively without subjecting the rest of the community to unnecessary
control.

So, where does this balance of the rights of individuals and society’s need for order
really lie? I believe the balance is somewhere between having the power to carry out
any investigation, arrests,
The community must decide where the balance of freedom and control lies.
We also know what this escalation in power can lead to, as presented in the book
1984.

Increase

Excessively

Policing

I believe police should be given the necessary power to perform the critical jobs that
allows our society to run smoothly